Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
The Overlook
Distributor Dinner
The drive to The Overlook climbed higher into the mountains, the road cutting through rock walls and dense canopy. By the final switchback, the sky had gone electric cobalt.
Then The Overlook appeared.
The restaurant sat on the ridge in stone, heavy timber, and walls of glass, glowing warm against the Blue Ridge.
A valet jogged toward the Range Rover the second Bennett pulled beneath the timbered covered entrance. “Evening, Mr. McCrae.”
Bennett handed over the keys, rolled his shoulders inside his charcoal suit coat, and came around to open Aubrey’s door.
She stepped out slowly, her heels clicking against the stone as she took in the glowing restaurant and the firelight. Then she glanced back at the sleek SUV, then at Bennett.
Aubrey narrowed her eyes slightly. “You keep pretending you’re some guy in work boots.”
One corner of Bennett’s mouth lifted as he stepped into her space.
“Careful, Princess. You’re sounding disappointed.”
She rolled her eyes, smoothing the front of the dark green silk dress.
“Try to keep up.”
The patio wrapped around the south side of the restaurant, with flagstone pavers, black railings, and a massive stone fireplace throwing firelight across the dark.
Aubrey slowed her pace, her breath catching.
Bennett glanced over, his eyes tracing the line of her profile, lingering on the exposed skin of her bare shoulders. “What?”
She shook her head slightly, the cool ridge air brushing the bare skin at the nape of her neck. “Nothing. It’s just… nice.”
“You can come out here after dinner.”
“You say that like you assume I’m staying.”
“I say that like you inherited a winery and a mountain.”
“I hate when you’re smug.”
“No, you don’t.”
Before she could argue, the heavy oak doors swung open, the ma?tre d’ greeting him by name.
Inside, The Overlook was white tablecloths, low lighting, and polished wood. Blackwood wine sat on almost every surface.
“Told you we were a real business.”
“Don’t ruin the moment.”
He gave her a sideways look, his eyes dark under the room’s lighting. “You’re having a moment?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
The rest of the group clustered near the mahogany bar. Savannah talked with a sommelier from Atlanta, while Zack lounged by a column with a drink in hand.
And Vanessa was there. Aubrey noticed her immediately.
Tall. Dark hair. Elegant without trying. Vanessa wore a black silk blouse tucked into tailored cream trousers, her dark hair pinned into a sleek knot at the nape of her neck. A glass of red wine rested loosely in her hand. She fit here. So did Bennett.
“Ben,” Vanessa said when she spotted them, her eyes flicking briefly from him to Aubrey and back again with a practiced, razor-sharp assessment. “Nice entrance.”
"Vanessa," Bennett said. "You're early."
"I'm always early when good wine is involved."
Aubrey straightened instinctively, her spine locking into place.
“Vanessa Mercer.” She extended her hand smoothly.
The handshake was warm. Aubrey smiled, though it didn't quite reach her eyes. Beside them, Bennett muttered something under his breath that sounded suspiciously like, “Jesus Christ.”
A second later, Zack appeared, carrying a glass of the reserve and looking entirely too entertained by the undercurrents. “There she is,” he announced cheerfully. “Blackwood’s mysterious heiress.”
Savannah looked up from a seating chart near the host stand. “And there’s our final disaster for the evening.”
“Rude,” Zack replied.
“Accurate,” Bennett said.
Before the conversation could settle, Eleanor Harper and Reid appeared from the foyer.
“Well,” Eleanor said dryly, her eyes raking over Aubrey’s green dress. “You look significantly less homicidal than you did at the will reading.”
“Progress,” Reid added. “I’m calling that a win.”
The dinner blurred into courses, candlelight, low jazz, and business.
“How many cases if we take the whole Tree of Life block this year?”
Vanessa handled the numbers without notes, talking logistics and shipping windows. Bennett leaned past her to answer a question from a buyer across the table, his hand settling briefly against the small of her back.
Aubrey told herself she didn’t care. Her pulse disagreed, ticking a chaotic rhythm against her ribs.
Zack, meanwhile, gave her the full Mercer experience from the seat beside her.
“So,” he said as dessert arrived, “on a scale from one to setting the tasting room on fire, how much do you regret coming down here?”
“Ask me after I survive a full week.”
“Bold of you to assume you’ll survive.” He tipped his bourbon toward Bennett. “He’s terrifying before his first coffee.”
“He’s terrifying after it too,” Aubrey replied primly.
Across the table, Bennett’s eyes snapped over at that. Vanessa noticed.
After dinner, the group drifted back out onto the patio. A small jazz trio played near the outdoor fireplace, and the mountains stretched out below.
Savannah mediated a debate between two sommeliers from Atlanta, while Zack stood beside the outdoor bar, charming everyone around him.
Vanessa stood near the stone fireplace with Bennett, comfortable in a way that came from years of shared history. She said something low near his shoulder, her hand brushing his sleeve, and Bennett’s mouth curved slightly around his whiskey glass.
Aubrey hated the sharp, hot twist of jealousy that pulled low and heavy in her stomach.
Beside her, Savannah followed her line of sight and sighed dramatically. “Ohhh no.”
Aubrey looked over quickly. “What?”
“You’re jealous already.”
“I absolutely am not.”
Savannah took a slow, deliberate sip of champagne. “Sure.”
Aubrey folded her arms across the green silk of her dress, trying to ignore the tight ache in her chest. “He’s an arrogant, pompous ass who thinks he knows everything.”
Savannah nodded thoughtfully. “That’s because he usually does. At least about wine,” she amended. “The rest of the time he mostly growls at weather patterns.”
A laugh escaped Aubrey before she could stop it. Across the patio, Bennett looked up immediately—like he somehow always knew where she was, his internal radar permanently tuned to her frequency. Their eyes locked across the firelight. Steady. Intent. Distractingly aware.
Aubrey looked away first and pulled out her phone beneath the shelter of the ledge.
She snapped a quick photo of the patio—the jazz trio, candlelight, and mountains disappearing into velvet darkness.
Bennett landed accidentally in the edge of the frame.
She texted it to Machelle immediately: “This place is absurd.”
Three dots appeared almost instantly.
Machelle: OH MY GOD.
Machelle: That is not a winery. That is a rich-people cult with jazz.
Aubrey nearly laughed into her glass.
Machelle: Also, why does Mountain Man look like he owns private helicopters and ruins women emotionally?
Aubrey looked up automatically. Bad decision. Because Bennett was already walking toward her through the firelight, leaving Vanessa by the hearth. God help her.
“Uh oh,” Savannah murmured beside her.
“What?”
“He’s got that look.”
“What look?”
“The one where he forgets other people exist.”
Aubrey’s pulse immediately betrayed her, a heavy thud against her ribs. Savannah smirked into her champagne and disappeared toward the bar as Bennett stepped up beside her near the iron railing.
Close. Too close. Whiskey, cedar, and the heavy warmth of the mountain night air enveloped her.
“You hiding over here?” he asked quietly.
“I’m enjoying five consecutive seconds without someone discussing Cabernet Franc.”
“Sounds miserable.”
She snorted softly. Below them, tiny lights glittered deep in the valleys. For a moment, neither of them spoke, the night pressing in soft and dark, firelight licking at the edge of his jaw.
Then Aubrey glanced sideways at him, the green dress shifting silkily against her skin. “You know,” she said quietly, her voice steadying with effort, “if you keep standing this close to me, you’re going to start smelling like my perfume instead of the Tom Ford you smelled like yesterday.”
For one suspended heartbeat, he looked at her, his gold-flecked eyes darkening under the patio lights, tracking the curve of her collarbones where the green silk dropped low.
He shifted even closer, his large frame completely blocking out the rest of the party. He didn’t just stand beside her; he turned, crowding her back against the iron railing until she was pinned there by the raw heat of his chest.
His forearm came down on the railing beside her hip, boxing her in. His free hand settled at the small of her back, his calloused palm warm through the silk of her dress as he eased her closer.
He breathed her in slowly near the curve of her throat. Citrus. Champagne. His dark gaze lowered heavily to her mouth, his breath warm against her lips.
“Yeah,” he said softly, his voice a rough, low growl that vibrated straight through her ribs. “I think I might like that.”
Her pulse kicked so violently her knuckles turned white around her glass. “Yeah, well,” she managed, her defenses fracturing into dust, “I wouldn’t.”
His mouth curved slowly, a lazy, dangerous tilt. He knew exactly what he was doing to her. He could see the frantic beat of her pulse at the base of her throat, feel the slight tremble in her frame, and he was clearly loving every single second of her stubborn resistance.
“Really?” he murmured, “Because I seem to remember us on a patio before. There’d been tequila involved.”
Aubrey narrowed her eyes immediately, desperate to grab onto her anger before she completely melted against him. “Oh my God.”
“And I kissed you.”
“You assaulted me with charm and bad judgment.”
“And your knees buckled.”
“They absolutely did not.”
His smile deepened, lazy, lethal, and entirely victorious. He dipped his head a fraction more, his mouth hovering a breath from hers—so close that if she took a deep breath, her lips would brush his.
“You stumbled and fell, right, Princess?”
“I tripped.”
“Mmhm.”
“You are outrageous.”
"And yet," Bennett murmured, his gaze dropping to her mouth again, "here you are. Standing here, trying so damn hard to pretend you don’t want me to do it again."
Aubrey lifted her chin, staring back into his eyes with a fierce, defiant glare that said she would rather dive off the edge of the ridge than confess he was getting to her. “I don’t want you to do anything, McCrae.”
His eyes flashed with pure amusement. “Liar,” he whispered.
The fire popped softly behind them, sending a small shower of orange sparks up into the mountain night. Jazz curled around them, low and slow. Everything suddenly felt too close, too suffocatingly warm, too charged.
Aubrey swallowed once, her eyes involuntarily fluttering shut for a brief second as his scent entirely consumed her. He noticed. His playful expression faded into something darker, hungrier, his gaze fixed on her mouth.
Every sensible nerve told Aubrey to move.
“The night’s still young,” he said, his voice dropping into a register so low it was practically a whisper against her lips.
And God help her—she was starting to think that might be a problem.
Somewhere behind them, someone laughed too loudly about allocations.
Bennett didn’t move away immediately. Instead, he let out a slow, frustrated breath against her skin, his thumb giving one final, heavy pressure against her waist before he slowly pulled his hand back.
For a second, Aubrey’s mind flickered back to Blackwood—the shadow by the barn, the cold weight of the lock in her hand, and the note. Who had left it? And what did they actually want from her?
A cold chill threatened to break through the heat, but she pushed the thought away, choosing instead to cling to the much hotter, far more dangerous problem standing right in front of her.
This man. This patio. This night.